Paris shooting: A timeline of violent attacks on French media

Police and medical emergency vehicles parked next to the Charlie Hebdo headquarters - EPA

PARIS: Below are the key violent attacks on French media organisations since the 1980s, after at least 12 people were killed when gunmen opened fire in the offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris on Wednesday.

None of the previous attacks resulted in casualties.

* Aug 1982 and April 1985: Bomb blasts at the offices of the far right weekly Minute in Paris cause extensive material damage. The attacks are claimed by anarcho-communist group Action Directe. The weekly had also been the target of bomb and car bomb attacks in 1971, 1974 and 1975.

* Jan 1987: A blast causes light damage at the offices of the magazine Jeune Afrique in Paris. The weekly had already been targeted in 1986 by an attack claimed by the extreme right group Charles Martel.

* July 1988: The explosion of a homemade bomb and the resulting fire devastate the offices of the left-wing monthly Globe in Paris. A fireman is wounded.

* Oct 1989: A small explosion damages the entrance hall of the far right monthly Le Choc du mois in Paris.

* Jan 1991: A blast damages the entrance hall of the headquarters of left-wing daily Liberation in Paris. An unsigned leaflet left at the scene links the attack to the newspaper’s coverage of the Gulf War.

* June 1997: The editorial premises of the Corsian regional daily Corse-Matin are targeted in Ajaccio. The newspaper had already been targeted in 1992 and 1994 in unclaimed attacks.

* Oct 2004: The headquarters of the communist daily L’Humanite in the Paris suburbs are damaged by a fire. Two days later the newspaper receives a threatening letter signed with a swastika, linking the fire with the newspaper’s criticism of the desecration of Jewish graves in Alsace. In November and December three fires break out at the newspaper’s premises and the editorial receives threatening letters of a racist nature.

* May 2011: An office of Corse-Matin is targeted by a blast in Bastia, damaging the facade of the building.

* Nov 2011: The headquarters of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, are destroyed in an arson attack on the same day the weekly publishes an edition renamed “Charia Hebdo”, (Sharia Hebdo), with a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed on the front page. Its Internet site was hacked.

* Nov 18, 2013: A photographer is seriously injured after being shot by an intruder at the Paris offices of Liberation. The shooting comes three days after a man stormed into the Paris headquarters of news channel BFMTV brandishing a shotgun and warned a senior editor: “Next time, I will not miss you.” The suspected attacker Abelhakim Dekhar, well known in far-left circles, is behind bars for attempted murder. – AFP